Feng Xing: Chapter 110
Thank you Christelle for the ko-fi!
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Translation: marchmallow
This was Little Sixteen’s first time leaving the palace. The Imperial Noble Consort said nothing prior to his departure, but it was Little Sixteen’s wet nurse, Mao-shi, who made a fuss over every detail, whether important or trivial.
One wet nurse would not suffice for every prince. However, as they grew older, the number of wet nurses tending to them gradually decreased, with only one remaining in the end. When they were over five years of age, it was customary for the princes to move to the northwest wing of the Forbidden City, so having a proper person to wait upon them was thereby a necessity. This person was none other than a prince’s wet nurse. No second person came close, so one could well imagine the status of this wet nurse.
Now, Little Sixteen only had one wet nurse, Mao-shi, by his side. Although she wasn’t a nanny, she was precisely like a nanny.1
But Feng Sheng did not intend to take her with them, which completely confounded Mao-shi.
“This servant must accompany Young Highness every day to sleep, as he definitely is not used to sleeping alone. Besides, Young Highness has to drink milk every day, so not taking this servant won’t be good, ah.”
These words seemed to be aimed at Feng Sheng, but she was actually looking towards the Imperial Noble Consort.
The Imperial Noble Consort frowned slightly, looking rather bemused.
Feng Sheng smiled and said, “Consort Mother, didn’t you see how well Little Sixteen ate with Jin ge’er today? Since you want him to be weaned off milk and start eating more, we won’t take the wet nurse along.”
Upon hearing these words, the honest-looking Mao-shi suddenly could not sit still.
“This won’t do. Young Highness cannot sleep without drinking milk in the evening.”
Which servant talked to their master this way? With these words, she could be considered to have overstepped her authority. However, she was Little Sixteen’s wet nurse, and the palace maids and eunuchs in Xianfu Palace normally regarded her with respect. Qian Ru knit her brows and restrained herself from uttering a word.
“Princess Consort Wei is right.” The Imperial Noble Consort veered her sight towards Little Sixteen and warned him, “Since you plan to go with your Third Brother and Third Sister-in-law, don’t drink milk at night anymore. If you can’t bear it, then you can’t leave the palace.”
Little Sixteen was still quite torn. He looked at Mao-shi, then at Feng Sheng, then shifted his eyes towards the little fatty, Jin ge’er. This very moment, Jin ge’er was also wondering how to urge his little uncle to leave with him now that the other had stopped moving. He tugged at Little Sixteen, his big eyes teeming with questions.
There were few children in the palace. Even the Fifteenth Prince was nearly five years older than Little Sixteen. Jin ge’er was considered to be Little Sixteen’s sole playmate, so he was extremely reluctant to part with him.
Anyway, he could drink milk at any time, but he could leave the palace only this once. Little Sixteen quickly made a decision.
“I will go with Third Brother and Third Sister-in-law without Nanny.”
The Imperial Noble Consort nodded with satisfaction. While Mao-shi’s face looked as though she was mourning her deceased mother, she had to cover it up for fear that others would notice.
“Young Highness, if you leave this servant here, you won’t be able to sleep at night. Why not take this servant with you?”
Feng Sheng and the Imperial Noble Consort remained unspeaking, and Prince Wei furrowed his brows. Qian Ru scolded, “Still not leaving yet? You think you have the right to say such words?!”
Mao-shi immediately retreated, but she cast an imploring glance at Little Sixteen as she plodded away.
But how old was Little Sixteen to be able to comprehend these keen words? The only thing he heard was his Consort Mother consenting to him leaving the palace, whereupon he burst into giggles as he held Jin ge’er’s little hand.
After Prince Wei and Feng Sheng left with Little Sixteen and Jin ge’er, the Imperial Noble Consor’s countenance darkened. “This Mao-shi cannot stay. Just take advantage of Little Sixteen’s absence the next few days to send her away.”
Qian Ru responded, “Yes.”
……
On the carriage back, Feng Sheng was still ruminating over it.
Even if the Imperial Noble Consort wanted to wean Little Sixteen off of milk, it wouldn’t be a one or two-day thing. The Imperial Noble Consort had issued the order, yet she was unsuccessful. Little Sixteen still had scant desire to eat, but, as before, he never missed a day of drinking milk. She surmised that they probably weren’t the only recipients of those words Mao-shi had spewed out.
The sentence ‘Young Highness couldn’t fall asleep without drinking milk at night’ might indeed seem like a passing statement to many, but even if he drank less, it wasn’t like he would die of hunger. Only if he genuinely manifested an obvious decline in health would people pay heed to his diet. This Mao-shi was truly both ignorant and hateful.
“What’s wrong? What are you thinking?” asked Prince Wei.
Because Little Sixteen was right beside them, Feng Sheng simply blinked and said nothing.
“That slave should be beaten and killed. There are several slaves like that in the palace. Consort Mother has never experienced this kind of thing before, so she fell for her puny tricks.”
After this utterance, the group quickly returned to the Wei Prince Manor.
This was Little Sixteen’s first glimpse of the world outside the palace, so everything was quite novel to him. Clever and quick-witted, Jin ge’er was also one who liked to show off. Now that his little uncle had set foot on his own domain, he dragged him all the way to his room.
Jin ge’er had been sleeping on his own since he was born. Only when Prince Wei was not in the manor did Feng Sheng stay beside him to sleep, so he had his own room.
His room housed an abundance of toys as well as his collection of various treasures. These treasures included, but were not limited to, a rotten branch, two small wooden sticks, and two bugs that he had scooped out from digging in the mud. He had forbidden the servants to throw them away, so all they could do was keep them. Left without a choice, they could only look for a small jar to confine them in until the little bugs would starve to death.
In the palace, Jin ge’er was extremely restrained, but in the prince manor, he was hailed as the King of Destruction ever since he started learning how to walk.
As she watched De Wang follow and look after the uncle-nephew pair treading hand in hand towards the east wing, Feng Sheng was relieved. A few affairs awaited him in the front courtyard, so Prince Wei had gone there. She took advantage of the liminal interval to busy herself with matters at hand.
After finishing her work, she went to the east wing to check on the two children. They had dozed off on the bed, their frolicking seeming to have exhausted them.
The two little ones had nibbled on snacks, but she had not yet eaten. Noticing that it was almost noon, she bid someone to go to the front courtyard to ask Prince Wei if he would come back for the noon meal. The servant returned to impart that he was still occupied and couldn’t return, so she had someone cook something to eat.
Once she finished her repast, she also took a nap. When she awoke in the afternoon, she heard the peal of children’s laughter outside. She tidied herself up and strode outside only to witness that the two had transformed into mud monkeys after their romp. Feng Sheng never restrained Jin ge’er from playing like so for the sake of giving him memorable childhood experiences. So long as he was not in danger, she never worried about him dirtying himself as he played. Anyway, the manor had a plethora of servants, and they could just wash the filth off of him.
As such, despite being a wealthy and honorable household, playing with mud was not prohibited in the Wei Prince Manor. If Feng Sheng were to reminisce, her earliest memory was of her playing with same-age children in the clan, snapping branches and gouging out insects from the soil.
Feng Sheng stood aside and watched them for a while, and then turned around and proceeded to the study to examine the account books.
It was Uncle Yu who had sent these account books. As Feng Sheng had permitted Uncle Yu to involve himself in the spinning and weaving industry, he not only purchased mulberry fields,2 but he also set up several weaving workshops. Ergo, as of late, accounts from various places grew more and more complex.
It wasn’t that they were too complex that she could no longer make sense of them, but that they came in droves, and looking through each of them consumed too much energy. Unfortunately, apart from Zhi Qiu, there were very few helpers she could employ. Feng Sheng wondered whether she could train several people, firstly to manage accounts, and secondly to establish her own reliable accounts office. Doing such would also preclude the collusion of profiteering and rapacious people from all ranks.
Although Feng Sheng was in the capital, she learned from Uncle Yu that similar incidents had transpired in several other places, but these were somewhat inconsequential that Uncle Yu had managed to discover and resolve them in time. There was also the official salt shop. In order to buy off salt merchants, Feng Sheng adopted a combination of official and private practices. It was ostensibly called an official salt shop, but in reality, the salt shop itself was privately owned.
Salt merchants aided the imperial court in selling salt. In order to prevent arbitrary price changes, the Salt Distribution Commission would check and ratify a unified price every year. There was little fluctuation in various regions, which could be due to the mutual supervision from both parties. But as far as Feng Sheng knew, there were already cases of people seeking personal gains for themselves, which, in the end, was still due to inadequate supervision. Some people in the Salt Tax Office could not even understand basic auditing, so how could they do a good job at supervising?
Feng Sheng thought a lot, and every time she had an idea, she would jot it down, and then integrate it into a bulk of ideas to pick out the appropriate ones from it.
Without her noticing, it was getting late. Jin ge’er’s loud yelling burst in from outside. Feng Sheng stood up from behind the desk, casually tidied up the tabletop, and went out.
Little Sixteen and Jin ge’er were both hungry. Despite having eaten snacks in the afternoon, the children were too active and naturally grew hungry rather quickly. Prince Wei had also returned from the front courtyard, and the family of four ate the evening meal together.
The evening meal was quite bounteous. Apart from balancing the tastes of Prince Wei and Feng Sheng, the two little ones were also taken into account.
Prince Wei had heavier preference for salty and spicy food, while Feng Sheng had lighter taste and preferred sweet food, so Jin ge’er usually ate with his mother.
Under Jin ge’er’s lead, Little Sixteen chose to eat by himself.
There was a small bowl of short-grained rice and a few fresh and tasty side dishes. Jin ge’er liked eating cherry meat and could gorge more than ten pieces at once. Feng Sheng feared that he would ingest too much greasy food and usually limited his consumption to five small pieces at a time, which she had also done this time around. There was also fish stewed in tofu soup. The fish had been stewed slowly, and the soup was milky white with tofu floating and swaying atop, looking extremely tender at a glance.
Jin ge’er had such a ravenous appetite that even Feng Sheng could eat two more bites eating with him, not to mention Little Sixteen.
Little Sixteen ate half a bowl of rice, three pieces of cherry meat, and half a small bowl of fish soup. After eating, he still wanted to eat, but Feng Sheng stopped him. Afraid that the two children would suffer from indigestion, she and Prince Wei led the two young ones out for a stroll.
When they returned after a while, she thought of Mao-shi’s remark that Little Sixteen couldn’t sleep at night without drinking milk. Feng Sheng was particularly vigilant. She asked someone to bathe the two children, then asked another one to fetch a book, intending to lull the children to sleep with it.
In this hot weather, Jin ge’er wore a huge red undergarment, his arms and legs resembling lotus roots, meaty and fleshy, making others want to pinch them. On the contrary, Little Sixteen was a bit older than him and seemed to be more aware of things, getting rather shy. Feng Sheng specially sent someone to fetch him an undergarment similar to Jin ge’er’s. She feared that he would unconsciously cast the quilt aside in his sleep and expose his stomach to the cold. He also laughed at Jin ge’er’s bare butt and his walking little birdie.
The uncle and nephew both went crazy for a while and then became drowsy.
Jin ge’er let out a lengthy yawn, and Little Sixteen was undoubtedly sleepy but kept tossing and turning restlessly, seemingly unable to sleep.
Feng Sheng had been watching them by the bedside. Seeing him like this, she asked him, “Little Sixteen can’t sleep?”
“I want Nanny.” He looked a little bashful, his face reddening as he said this, seemingly aware that it was a little shameful because Jin ge’er didn’t even ask for a nanny.
“Little Sixteen is already old enough and has to learn how to sleep alone. Look at Jin ge’er, he can sleep all by himself.”
“But……” Little Sixteen stammered and stopped talking.
Feng Sheng wanted to divert his attention and asked, “Was the cherry meat you ate today tasty?”
Thinking of that cherry meat with a delectable sweetness that melted in his mouth, Little Sixteen nodded. He had never eaten this in the palace. He originally didn’t like eating at all, but cherry meat was a bit greasy. There was nothing “too” excessive when raising children in the palace, which was why they would drink milk rather than eat or be given food.
Because the children were too young, many food were not easy to digest. Once they suffered from indigestion, they couldn’t drink medicine because of their susceptibilities. Milk was the easiest to digest, and they drank milk after they were born, so milk was naturally a good thing.
Of course, Little Sixteen had not given up breast milk just for this reason; it was also because of the wet nurse’s selfishness. A prince who would cease breastfeeding too early would have a weak relationship with the wet nurse. Naturally, the wet nurse would deduce that the longer he drank, the better it would be for her. It was best if a prince was sensible. Drinking only milk without eating food hindered Little Sixteen’s growth.
“Do you still want to eat? Then we’ll have the kitchen cook it for you tomorrow. Your Third Brother asked someone to invite a cook from Jiangnan, and that person has returned. He will also make a lot of delicious food, only that you never used to eat much before. Third Sister-in-law is afraid you can’t digest it, so you can’t eat too much at a time.” Feng Sheng had also told Little Sixteen this at the dinner table earlier.
“What other tasty food are there?” inquired Little Sixteen, swallowing his saliva.
“There are pork meatball stew, squirrel mandarin fish, pig head meat, three sets of duck, tender back eel, steamed roe dumpling, thousand-layer cake, lotus crucian carp, fried shelled shrimp with biluochun tea, savory deep-fried whitebait……”3
As Feng Sheng recited the names of the dishes, Little Sixteen succumbed to slumber while listening. Jin ge’er beside him had already fallen asleep much earlier, but he seemed to have heard his mother enumerating names of various dishes, so he smacked his lips and kept interjecting that they were tasty.
She held back her laughter, tucked the two children in and stood up. Unexpectedly, when she turned around, she bumped into Prince Wei.
“Is that how you put people to sleep?” asked Prince Wei in a low voice.
“I had no other choice. Anyway, he can eat these.” Feng Sheng smiled and spread her arms.
*
Facts proved that the Imperial Noble Consort truly understood Empress Chen. They really did what the Imperial Noble Consort had predicted they would do.
After the First Princess Consort joined the household, the married couple had also done a lot of controversial things that elicited divergent public opinion, but soon, the First Prince quickly corrected himself. It seemed that the manor now had a reliable mistress who not only refreshed the atmosphere in the manor, but also had an enormous influence on her husband.
The First Prince had gotten rid of his drinking problem and became obedient and diligent. Every day, he entered the palace to pay respects to the Empress and the Jianping Emperor. After returning to the manor, he no longer drank and played, but instead, he assiduously began studying the classics. More than half of the concubines in the manor had been dismissed. As for his relationship with Sun-shi, it couldn’t be said that they mutually helped each other in humble circumstances, but mutual respect between husband and wife was at least present.
Many speculated whether the First Prince had really changed or was merely just masquerading. Even Feng Sheng and Prince Wei could not help but say a few words in private. But whether it was true or false, as long as he persevered, there would inevitably be changes.
Even the Jianping Emperor was emotionally moved to some extent. From an outsider’s point of view, the First Prince had gone from not being unable to enter even the gate of Qianqing Palace to being able to saunter inside its palace hall and even lounge there for a while. The Jianping Emperor had relaxed his countenance and even praised him occasionally in front of people. Prince Wu and other princes could not sit still once more, but their petty maneuvers only handed the butcher’s knife to the First Prince, making the First Prince even more conspicuous.
On the contrary, Empress Chen had been uncommunicative all the while. She dwelled in deep seclusion in the name of recovering from illness and no longer interfered in palace affairs, allowing the Imperial Noble Consort to bask in public attention and be crowned as the most favored in the imperial harem. This kind of her, on the contrary, brought about the Jianping Emperor’s gentle attitude.
In the 32nd year of Jianping’s reign, the First Prince was conferred the title of Prince Hui. Since then, his situation finally changed from being a previously untitled prince to now being deemed to be someone on equal footing with his brothers.
During this period of time, although it was inevitable for things of such nature to happen in the capital, they were merely small twists and turns and could not cause any great waves. Contrariwise, the Jinjiang Academy became more and more prosperous. Now, there was no one who did not know the Jinjiang Academy’s famous name. After several years of operation, despite the academy not having produced another Zhuangyuan, several Jinshi4 also hailed from it. Feng Sheng and Prince Wei also knew in their hearts that establishing the academy’s prestige had to be done slowly and thus weren’t worried.
Unlike the men’s hall, the women’s hall had undergone immense changes in recent years. Apart from the initial twenty female students, the women’s hall had successively admitted a plethora of students as of present. It was not as flourishing as the men’s hall, but its state was also thriving.
Feng Sheng had also set up a small school outside the academy. For the time being, there were only two halls in the small school: an embroidery hall and a cooking hall. The reason for this was that there were always some female students in the academy who truly had no desire to learn the classics or perhaps whose calling wasn’t through the path of erudition.
Feng Sheng could do nothing else but help them find another way out.
For this reason, she opened several large-scale weaving workshops and mulberry fields in the Suzhou-Hangzhou regions as well as a multitude of pastry shops and embroidery workshops in various prefectures and counties in the Northern and Zhili provinces. These weaving and embroidery workshops as well as the pastry shops directly employed skilled workers from the academy. So long as they completed a course and finished their apprenticeship in the academy, they could work there.
At the beginning, when the first batch of female students that graduated and fulfilled their apprenticeship directly began working, it caused quite a stir. There were weavers and ebroideresses in weaving and embroidery workshops, but their foundation was from the profound learning inherited through family. Never in their lives did they expect that there would be such a school that would teach people workmanship typically passed on from ancestors, even going so far as to provide work.
As soon as the news was widely spread around, and upon learning that those employed working women could really earn silver, many were moved. Hearing that the school had no age restriction, even several married women rushed over to study.
Because the school was so well-received, Feng Sheng set up two other branch schools in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang and Suzhou-Hangzhou regions, no longer limiting it to two classes of embroidery and cooking, but also adding an accounting class. Feng Sheng had long been wanting to move this idea, but it was not easy to implement, so she expended considerable mental and physical efforts on this.
However, it was not without gain, because she derived new ideas from that single thought. If one would consider the flourishing commerce in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang and Suzhou-Hangzhou regions, relatively speaking, they still had a shortage of accounts offices. As such, the branch institution came forward to cooperate with other local shops to provide each other manpower for accounting.
Succeeding the expansion of these branches, Feng Sheng also felt that the men’s hall could also establish another branch, specifically to cultivate talents similar to those of clerks and private advisors.
This was the inspiration given to her by the Shaoxing Group of Advisors. Even the idea of setting up branches of the women’s hall was based on this. Since advisors could assist, teach by precept and example, pass on skills from father to son, and form their own system, why couldn’t others? The path of imperial examinations was so narrow that some would always fail, so why not alter the path?
Prince Wei naturally managed the men’s hall. Just as the husband and wife were busy and bustling with the academy’s affairs, many other things occurred.
For instance, Prince Hui finally entered the court once more and undertook court duties. Another instance was Prince Wu, Prince Zhao and other princes trying to hinder him while also obstructing each other. On top of that, Princess Consort Liang finally bore a legitimate son after birthing to two daughters. There was also the Thirteen Prince’s marriage and bestowment of title, and other such things. But all these had nothing to do with the Prince Wei married couple.
Time flew by quickly, and four years passed in the blink of an eye.
And the Jianping Emperor, as the Imperial Noble Consort had once said, had always been healthy and secure. On this basis, the Jianping Emperor still had no intention to appoint an heir apparent. Hence, the princes began to exhibit a harmonious and peaceful relationship, showing each other love and respect as good brothers should, acting in a play of “benevolent father, filial sons”.
As for Feng Sheng’s relationship with her group of sisters-in-law, although it was inevitable for them to oppose each other with equal harshness in the past, they now grew increasingly harmonious, at least on the surface. With more and more children being born in every family and in every manor, they were bound to keep entertaining guests or visiting each other, which thereby called for more congenial, happier and warmer relations.
1 I’ve been translating 奶娘 as wet nurse in the past chapters because this is literally what it means, but in the later part of the sentence it implies that it’s very slightly different from a 乳母, which also literally translates to wet nurse, so I’m confused lol. Anyway, I’m guessing they’re using 乳母 as a substitute for a nanny in this sentence. That was a foreign concept in ancient China, so I guess what it’s saying is that the lone wet nurse left feeding a prince becomes his caretaker.
2 Silkworms only eat mulberry leaves, so Uncle Yu purchased mulberry fields for the production of silk.
3 Food Feng Sheng has mentioned in this order (I didn’t include the duck and whitebait because they’re pretty generic dishes):
U: pork meatball stew, squirrel fish, pig head meat, tender eel
L: roe dumpling, thousand-layer cake, lotus crucian carp, biluo shrimp
4 Passers of the highest level of the imperial examination (court/palace exam) are called Jinshi, while the top-scoring / first-place Jinshi is called a Zhuangyuan.
